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Tavis: Mike Allen is the White House correspondent for 'Time' magazine who previously covered the West Wing for 'The Washington Post.' In the current issue of 'Time,' he writes about his recent travels with Vice President Dick Cheney, who's been on the road trying to re-energize the Republican base. Mike Allen joins us tonight from Washington. Mike, nice to have you on the program, sir.

Mike Allen: Hello Tavis, psyched to be here.

Tavis: Let me ask, with the freefall that the Republican Party seems to be in, what has the vice president been saying to the troops? Anything new or different?

Allen: Well, Tavis, the vice president is talking to the people that he's most popular with, which is conservatives. There aren't a lot of places where the president can go, or I should say there are certain places where the president's not gonna be very popular. There are also a lot of places where the vice president's not going to be popular. But he goes to audiences where this is the sort of (unintelligible) most important Republican voters.

Places where he's gonna get applause. Places where Tavis, he can, say, let it go, and joke about running again. He'll say a reception like this is so great, I'm almost thinking about running again. And he'll pause for applause, and say almost. And of course, there aren't a lot of places like that. But Tavis, what's interesting is that these are the voters that are most important to Republicans now.

As you know, for several elections now, the Republican turn-out strategy has been based on growing their conservative base. Getting their people out. Figuring out who would be their people if they turned out, and turning them out. But for a lot of reasons that we'll talk about, those are some of the voters who are most unhappy right now. And so this is a very important crowd for the vice president to hit up.

I've traveled with him to Kansas, very Republican area. Not, obviously, a swing state by any means. And then down, went with him to New Orleans, where he briefly got an update about Katrina. Got an update from the Corps of Engineers on the rebuilding of the levee. Visited a tugboat, saw its navigation system. Then went over and did, on the upper floors of a skyscraper, a fundraiser for the Republican National Committee. And so, it sort of followed a format, which is the vice president goes into places where he's going to be helpful, does fundraisers, does rallies, and then heads back to DC.

Tavis: Let me ask what these voters, this core constituency that you referenced that is so important to the GOP as we approach these midterm elections, we all agree on that, what are they unhappy about?

Allen: Well Tavis, if you're a red state, red-blooded voter out there, Joe Bush voter in an exurb like Apex, North Carolina, places like that, you probably voted for a Republican because they're competent on national security, because they have fiscal discipline, they're not gonna waste money, and because they have family values. Now you look at the news, why do you vote for Republicans now?

I asked some people, some of my friends who work for the party, would you vote for yourselves? That's the problem, is that the people who the Republican qualities, the Republican brand is most important to, have reasons to doubt each of those things. Now, what you'll hear Republicans and the White House saying is Democrats would be worse. That the president has kept the nation safe in a dangerous world.

That we've now come to take for granted that there's been no new 9/11. But that that is something that well could have happened, Tavis. You and I probably would have bet that that would have happened. And that's one of the points that the vice president makes in his speeches, is that that's no accident. And he attributes it partly to some of these controversial policies like eavesdropping.

Tavis: So the answer to Iraq and that quagmire, the answer to Mark Foley, the answer to what the leadership knew and when they knew it, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, the answer to all of this, in his stump speech, is that the Democrats would be worse?

Allen: No, Tavis, let's be fair about that. That's one of the points that they make. And Republicans continue to sell themselves as someone who will protect you from increased taxes, who protect the nation from danger abroad, and who are more in touch with Americans who are concerned about a changing culture, who are more sensitive to that. But Tavis, you mentioned Mark Foley.

Obviously, that's tremendously problematic. And Tavis, after the Mark Foley story started to get a lot of attention, there was a real wind shear in Republican polls. Even when things weren't looking so well, the president told his people, we're gonna win. There was not contingency planning in the White House for what you do with a Democratic Congress, because they remained confident.

And as you know, you've interviewed these people over and over over the years, and you know that that's one of their qualities, is they have confidence and optimism, and voters like that. And that's been one of their big appeals. But Tavis, they've now seen, in that first round of polls after Mark Foley, they saw that that's something they're probably not going to recover from. So now you're...

Tavis: I'm sorry, not to cut you off. It may be something they don't recover from, assuming that their organization doesn't kick in. And the point that you made a moment ago, which is absolutely brilliant and on point, is that their organization has always, always, always trumped the Democratic organization. And so even when the Democrats have all this stuff to work with, as I talked to Howard Dean about on this program last night, if they can't turn out their likely voters the way the Republican machine does, the Democrats ostensibly could still lose.

Allen: You're right. Tavis, that's very astute. Because if you look at a race that on paper or on in a poll looks like a toss-up, it could well go Republican. Because Republicans have pioneered, perfected some of these techniques. They talk about micro-targeting, which is instead of it used to be, Tavis, as you know, that we looked at what zip code a particular party might go after.

Or what precinct, right? Now, they don't go after a certain block, they go after a certain house. And as you know, they use consumer data, like what clubs you belong to, what school your kids are in, what magazines you subscribe to, to figure out if you turned out, would you be likely to vote Republican? And if you fit the criteria to look like you'd vote Republican if you turned out, then they'd register you and spend a lot of money to focus on turning you out.

And as you know, they have what they call the 72 hour program, which was developed by Karl Rove and Ken Melman and their colleagues after the 2000 election, when clearly they had overestimated their turn-out. You don't plan to win by 535 votes, arguably. And so they knew that they wanted to increase Republican turn-out. And so they had this program where they had the insight that not only did you go to heavily Republican areas, but also slightly bump up Republican turn-out in the other guys' areas.

But Tavis, here's the problem. This year, as you know, that problem will not overcome a bad candidate. It will not overcome some sort of tsunami of voter discontent or voter disapproval or worries. And it's very expensive. And the other thing it depends on, obviously, is the intensity of your voters. So just at lunch today, a Republican explained to me as being like a pyramid scheme.

And that is your first couple people, your highly intense Republicans, your people who are opinion leaders, people that other people at the church or at the club are gonna ask for their advice. And they tell two people, and they tell two friends. It's like the old Breck commercial, right? And so on, and so on, and so on. The problem is this year, because Republicans are so unhappy with the way things are going, you can't depend on those top two people to get the chain going.

And something that someone just mentioned to me that I didn't realize is now they're even worried that because of Mark Foley and other issues that have come up, now they're not even sure that those people that they depended on turning out would vote for them if they came out. And last thing, as you know, Tavis, it depends on a lot of money, and they now do not have enough money to do state of the art turn-out operations in all the races that they need to. They suddenly are having to play on more football fields than they realized they would.

Tavis: I mentioned earlier we had Howard Dean on this program last night. We also had Mr. Kuo, former White House aide who has written this explosive and provocative new book about how this White House, behind the doors, behind the walls of the White House, really does have a certain antipathy, his words, not mine. The White House, many people in the White House see these conservative evangelicals, their base, as boorish, as nuts.

These are words in Mr. Kuo's book. How is a story like that, on top of Foley, going to break right about now, when these persons who Mr. Cheney is talking to, who he's popular with, reads about what his colleagues in the White House really think of them?

Allen: Yeah, well, Tavis, a couple things. First of all, your viewers are among the most astute and best-informed in television, and so they can recognize someone who's trying to sell a book when they see it. And I think one of the larger points that David Kuo makes is that the president's faith-based agenda sort of took a back seat after 9/11. I don't think a lot of people disagree with that.

I think what people do disagree with is the sort of motives that he maybe imputes. David is an unbelievably sincere man. I saw your interview with him. I know David well; I've worshipped at his church many times. I had a phone conversation with him today. But what he's describing is not a widespread opinion in the West Wing. I don't doubt that those words were said by someone.

And as you know, he doesn't attribute them to any particular person. But he just sort of makes a broad claim. But your original question, yes, of course it's extremely damaging. Christian conservatives trust this president, and this gives them a reason not to. Could not come at a worse time for this White House. You have Bob Woodward's book, which questions their competence, which of course is sort of one of the hallmarks of the Bush brand.

And now you have David Kuo literally questioning their good faith. But Tavis, something I'll tell you, you have interviewed a lot of the Bush people over the years. You know that they've seen adversity many times. In Texas, people have been waiting 13 years for George Bush's luck to run out. And some time, that may well happen. (Laugh) And it may well be November seventh.

But so far, he's managed to, in the view of Democrats, stay one step ahead of the sheriff. In the view of Republicans, to once again outwit his enemies in the media, and wherever else they see his enemies.

Tavis: The cover this week, as I let you go right quick, the cover of your magazine, 'Time' magazine, this week, Barack Obama. And a cover story about whether or not this guy could, in fact, be the next President of the United States. We're talking, for the better part of this conversation, about the midterm elections. But how concerned are Republicans about '08? Because obviously that's predicated upon '06.

And you got folk like Obama and Hillary and others who are already starting to get some traction. Are they concerned, not just about what they need to do now, but about what's in the offing from the other side of the aisle?

Allen: Well Tavis, that's so interesting. There's a school of thought among Republicans, and if they get the sort of losses that they expect and that Fred Barnes of the 'Weekly Standard' predicted this week in a very fascinating piece saying that Republicans are likely to have a bad night, and he's definitely one of the true believers, if they have that kind of night, one of the things you'll hear is saying that this may, in fact, give the Republican nominee a better chance in '08.

Tavis, as you well know, history says no one wins everything all the time, right? And so if Democrats have a house, it might take some air out of the push for change, and of course it would give Republicans the opportunity to run against speaker Nancy Pelosi. Now, they will acknowledge to you in their more candid moments that after they've controlled everything for six years, it's gonna be a little difficult to run against Nancy Pelosi's Washington.

But they certainly will try to, and there's no question that as you suggested, that both parties' messages will be very affected by what happens in '06. Democrats will see whether they're freer to be a little bit more liberal, and you may find Republicans finding that they're going to have to distance themselves from the president. What one Republican said to me is, on Iraq, one thing we can agree on, both sides, what's happening now isn't working. So, the president's in for a long couple years with people on both sides, perhaps, critiquing his approach so far.

Tavis: I should mention a quick programming note, on this program next Monday night, Barack Obama, of course, cover of 'Time' magazine and everywhere else. His new book is about to drop. He'll be a guest on this pg next Monday night. Illinois Democrat Barack Obama. For now, though, I thank Mike Allen, White House correspondent for 'Time' magazine. Mike, nice to have you on the program.

Allen: Tavis, it was a huge honor to be here. Thank you for letting me talk to your viewers.

Tavis: It's my pleasure, thank you, sir. Up next on this program, TV's Judge Hatchett, as in Glenda Hatchett. Stay with us.